Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-08-25

III the state must be wrought into the
elementary organization of the state.
This is not the common school but the
family. The common school is q con-
trivance of the state to remedy the fail
ure of the family to furnish adequate
instruction to its numbers in secular
literature.
On the same principle the Sabbath
school is continuance of the church to
remedy the failure Of the family to
furnish to its members adequate relig-
ious instruction. The common school
is then not the foundation of secular
society, nor the Sabbath school the
basis of the church. Secular society
existed for ages without common
schools, and churches without Sabbath
schools. But neither one ever existed
unless the family preceded it.
1t has been said that, I" Man is
animal-fat vices aud lean virtues"
One of his leanest virtues consists IN
admitting that something good must
be done and yet insisting that some
body else must do it.
The writer has some experience in
regard to the reading of the bible in
the common schools. Sixty years ago
he was trained in a very strong Scotch
Irish Presbyterian community, where
bible reading and a familiarity with
the shorter catechIsm were enforced in
day schools where the schoolmaster sat
enthroned, frequently we'll primed
with whlskey, and always with copy
of the bible and stout hickory laid up
within easy reach. It required great
deal of whisky to run Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian church in those days.
Provided, always, that the supply of
whiskey held out, nine-tenths of the
patrons of those schools would have
argued until their tongues cleave to
the roofs of their mouths or fought
knee-deep in blood for the abstract
right to read a bible which they never
opened except to find some excuse to
curse some other sect or the right to
get drunk. Thus their duty of reading
the bible was relegated to the school
| teacher.
And now, in the dry light of judg-
ment somewhat ripened by the expe-
rience of sixty years, forty-seven of
which have been devoted to the sys-
tenatic study of the bible and of the
problems arising out of the application
of Gods truth to the souls of men, q
careful review fails to develop sny ben
eft ever realized from reading the bible
in the common school. Aud yet it
was read then as carefully as it is now,
and systematically. The writer feels
compelled to account for this want of
success in the bible to accomplish its
mission. Certainly the failure was
not in the book. A variety of reasons
suggest themselves. The bible in the
common school was not the place for
which God designed it.
If Robert Burns had never written q
line beyond 1.-THE Cotter's Saturday
Night" his fame would last while the
moon endures. 10 make an extract
would spoil the whole. The reader is
referred to the poem to learn the right
place and right use of the bible. But
it Is likely that the greater secret of
failure lay in the fact that the great
design of the bible was ignored.
God deals with US as rational beings;
that is, He reaches our hearts through
our brains. One of the sins that doth
most easily beset the professor of our
commercial christianity is the desire to
see how near hell he can 60 and yet
dodge it, and there are ways to hell
from the very gate Of heaven; and in
furtherance of the divorce between
mind and morals the desire is to see
how much use we can make of the BIZ
BILE and yet miss its great design.
The literary character of the bible il
the great point considered in its intro
duction into the common school. Even
the extracts from it scattered about in
our readers are mixed up with others
from Rousseau, Shakespeare, Byron
and Dickens, and no one reads them
with benefit.
If the benefits of reading the bible
are to be realized it must be restored to
the family.
It is conceded that the patrons as in
dividuals have duties which they owe
to the schools, and among these is the
obligation to send scholars imbued
with the proper spirit to learn. This
can only be secured by sound, moral
training In the family. This can only
grow out of the bible in the family. It
is customary for the advocates of Sab
bath schools to denounce the common
schools because the bible is not read in
them. The answer is that there is no
law forbidding any man to read the
bible in his own family. And still Less
is there any law forbidding the teach
ing of the bible truths in the Sabbath
pulpits of our land. There
never has been q time when bibles
were cheaper or Sabbath schools more
numerous and self-assertive. And yet
Chaplain Boss of the Brooklyn Peni-
Tertiary, reports that whilst twenty
years ago only five per cent. of GRIMM
ais had received Sabbath school in
struction, the percentage is now seven
ty-five. From this it appears that
where the instruction of the pulpit and